The House Intelligence Committee approved a sweeping new cybersecurity bill Thursday, 17-1, after Chairman Mike Rogers and ranking Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger agreed to changes intended to assuage the concerns of the White House, civil liberties advocates and liberal Democrats on the panel.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) cast the lone “no” vote, telling POLITICO that she doesn’t think the bill does enough to safeguard civil liberties. But Schakowsky also acknowledged “a certain urgency” to getting a new cybersecurity law on the books.

Rogers (R-Mich.) and Ruppersberger (D-Md.) hailed the nearly unanimous vote as a good sign for speedy House passage of legislation they say is critical to defending the country’s economy and citizenry from cyberattacks.

“We’ve been promised floor time,” Rogers said in an interview shortly after the closed-door meeting of the committee. “It could be as early as January.”

The measure would allow the government and private companies to share information about electronic threats and attacks. Private entities would participate on a voluntary basis and would receive significant liability protections in return.

The White House and Democrats on the committee had expressed concerns about the possibility that information sharing could lead to invasions of privacy on matters unrelated to protecting the nation. The ACLU charged that the bill, in its original form, did not limit the type of information companies could share with the government. Others expressed fear that the bill could also concentrate private citizens’ information in the hands of the National Security Agency, without restrictions on how the government could use the data.

To win Democratic support for the bill, Rogers and Ruppersberger agreed to new language intended to ensure that only information pertaining to cybersecurity and national security could be used.

The administration is "currently reviewing the text to see if it adequately addresses the concerns we've raised," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

The bill moved through committee at lightning speed, having been introduced by Rogers and Ruppersberger on Wednesday.

Democratic members of the committee huddled with Ruppersberger Wednesday evening in a public room adjacent to the House floor to air their concerns about the bill, and Ruppersberger and Rogers, who have a strong personal relationship, exchanged heated words over the bill.

But by Thursday, with assurances that the White House wouldn’t stand in their way, the two men cut a deal to get the bill moving.

"Rogers and I had been working this right up until five minutes before the markup," Ruppersberger said.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:09 p.m. on December 1, 2011.